THE YELLOW PERIL IN HIVELAND
IN the hedgerow that surrounds the bee-garden the wrens and robins have
been singing all the morning long. Still a few pale sulphur buds remain
on the evening-primroses. The balsams make a glowing patch of magenta by
the garden gate. Over the door porch of the old thatched cottage purple
clematis climbs bravely; and the nasturtiums still flaunt their scarlet
and gold in the sunny angle of the wall. But, for all the colour and the
music, the hot sun, and the serene blue air overhead, you can never
forget that it is October. If the towering elm-trees by the lane-side
showed no fretting of amber in their greenery, nor the beeches sent down
their steady rain of russet, there would still be one indubitable mark of
the season—the voice of the hives themselves.
Rich and wavering and low in the sweet autumn sunlight, it comes over to
you now with the very spirit of rest in every halting tone. There is
work, of a kind, doing in the bee-garden. A steady tide of bees is
stemming out from and home to every hive. But there is none of the press
and busy clamour of bygone summer days. It is only a make-believe of
duty. Each bee, as she swings up into the sunshine, hovers a while
before setting easy sail for the ivy in the lane; and, on returning, she
may bask for whole minutes together on the hot hive-roof. There is no
sort of hurry; little as there may be to do abroad, there is less at
home.
But to one section of the bee-community, these slack October hours bring
no cessation of toil. The guards at the gate must redouble their
vigilance. Cut off from most of their natural supplies, the yellow
pirates—the wasps—are continually prowling about the entrance; and, in
these lean times, will dare all dangers for a fill of honey. Incessant
fierce skirmishes take place on the alighting-board. The guards hurl
themselves at each adventuress in turn. The wasp, calculating coward
that she is, invariably declines battle, and makes off; but only to
return a little later, hoping for the unwary moment that is sure to come.
While the whole strength of the picket is engaged with other would-be
pilferers, she slips round the scuffling crew, and plunges into the
fragrant gloom of the hive.
The variation in temperament among the members of a bee-colony is never
better illustrated than by the way in which these marauders are received
and dealt with. The wasp never tries to pick a way to the honey-stores
through the close packed ranks of the bees. She keeps to the sides of
the hive, and works her way up by a series of quick darts whenever a path
opens before her. Evidently her plan is to avoid contact with the
home-keeping bees, which, at this time of year, have little more to do
than loiter over the combs, or tuck themselves away in the empty
brood-cells by the hour together. But in her desultory advance, she
often cannons against single bees; and then she may be either mildly
interrogated, fiercely challenged, or may be allowed to pass with a
friendly stroke of the antennæ, as though she were an orthodox member of
the hive. Again, you may see her recognised for a stranger by three or
four workers simultaneously. She will be surrounded and closely
questioned. The bees draw back and confer among themselves in obvious
doubt. The wasp knows better than to await the result of their
deliberations; by the time they look for her again, she is gone.
She carries her life in her hand, and well she knows it. The farther she
goes, the more suspicious and menacing the bees become. Now she has wild
little scuffles here and there with the boldest of them, but her superior
adroitness and pace save her at every turn. It is about an even wager
that she will reach the brimming honey-cells, load herself up to the
chin, and escape home to her paper-stronghold with her spoils.
As often as not, however, these hive-robbing wasps pay the last great
price for their temerity. Those who study bee-life closely and
unremittingly, year after year, find it difficult to escape the
conclusion that there are certain bees in the crowd who are mentally and
physically in advance of their sisters. The notion of the old
bee-keepers—that there were generals and captains as well as
rank-and-file in the hive—seems, in fact, to be not entirely without
latter-day confirmation. And it is just the chance of falling in with
one of these bees that constitutes, for the wasp, the main risk when
robbing the hives.
If this happens, there is no longer any doubt of the turn affairs are to
take. At an unlucky moment the wasp brushes against one of these
hive-constables and instead of indifference, or, at most, a spiteful
tweak of the leg or wing in passing, she finds herself suddenly at deadly
grips. The bee’s attack is as swift as it is furious. Seizing the
yellow honey-thief with all six legs, she hacks away at her with her
jaws, at the same time curving her body inwards with her cruel sting
bared to the hilt. Even now, although more than equal to one bee at any
time, the policy of the wasp is to refuse the fight, and to run. Her
long legs give her a better reach. She forces her adversary away,
disengages, and charges off towards the dim light of the entrance.
In all that follows, this is the beacon that guides her. If she could
get a clear course, her greater speed would soon out-distance all
pursuit. But the sudden clash of arms in the quiet of the hive has an
extraordinary effect on the sluggish colony. The alarm spreads on every
side. Wherever the wasp runs now she is met with snapping jaws and
detaining embraces. As she rushes madly down the comb, she is
continually pulled up in full flight by bees hanging on to her legs, her
wings, her black waving antenna. A dozen times she shakes them all off,
and speeds on, the spot of light and safety in the distance ever growing
brighter and larger. But she seldom escapes with her life if affairs
have reached this pass. The way now is alive with enemies. She is
stopped and headed off in all directions. Trying this way and that for a
loophole, she finally gives it up and turns on her tracks, bewildered and
panic-stricken, only to rush straight into the midst of more foes.
The end is always the same. Another of the stalwarts spies her, and in a
moment the two are locked in berserk conflict. Together they drop down
between the combs and thud to the bottom of the hive. Here it is hard to
tell what happens. The fight is so fierce and sharp, and the two whirl
round and tumble over and over together so wildly that you can make out
little else than a spinning blur of brown and yellow. A great bright
drop of honey flies off: in her extremity the wasp has disgorged her
spoils. Perhaps for an instant the warriors may get wedged up in a
corner, and then you may see that they are not lunging at random with
their stilettos, but each is trying for a side-thrust on the body; these
mail-clad creatures are vulnerable to each other only at one point—the
spiracles, or breathing-holes. Often the wasp deals the first fatal
blow, and the bee drops off mortally hurt. She may even dispose of three
or four of her assailants thus in quick succession. But each time
another bee closes with her at once. For the wasp there can only be one
end to it. Sooner or later she gets the finishing stroke.
And then there follows a grim little comedy. The bee, torn and ragged as
she is from the incessant gnashing of those razor-edged yellow jaws,
nevertheless pauses not a moment. She grips her dying adversary by the
base of the wing, and struggles off with her towards the entrance of the
hive. It is a hard job, but she succeeds at last. Alternately pushing
her burden before her, or dragging it behind, at length she wins out into
the open, and, with a final desperate effort, tumbles the wasp over the
edge of the footboard down into the grass below. Yet this is not enough.
The victory must be celebrated in the old warrior fashion. Rent and
bleeding and exhausted as she is, she finds she can still fly. And up
into the mellow sunbeams of the October morning she sweeps, giddily and
uncertainly, piercing the air with her shrill song of triumph. Through
the murmurous quiet of the bee-garden, it rings out like a cry in the
night.